


well-behaved women seldom make history

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Gen, five things, ladies are awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Margaret Houlihan was really proud of herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	well-behaved women seldom make history

**Author's Note:**

> five things commentfic for cosmic_llin!

1\. Right from the very beginning, she resolved to make the best of it. And having resolved to make the best of it, she made the best of cockroaches in the shower and scratching noises inside her tent; she made the best of Hawkeye Pierce and his Groucho Marx impersonations and his frightening disregard for everything and everyone; she made some clear-eyed decisions, her first night in camp, about herself and what she wanted and where she wanted to be, and made the best of Frank Burns. 

The cockroaches scuttled out of the drain; the rats scurried into the shadows; Pierce and McIntyre set fire to the latrines; Frank Burns had no lips. And one day about ten weeks into the life of the MASH 4077th, quite in passing, Radar said something to Colonel Blake in her hearing about "the highest efficiency rating in Korea".

Much later she would think of the joke – Margaret Houlihan made the best of it – and laugh, and be proud again even at the distance of years and thousands of miles, but at that moment she leaned against the wall in Colonel Blake's outer office and thought about all of them, the young men in post-op, where it was clean and well-lit and nothing scurried, where the best was yet to come.

*

2\. "This is a medical unit, son, no one points a weapon here," Potter was saying, and Radar was running through the double doors to get Captain Hunnicutt and the other patients were gasping in horror, and then, one by one, though they had been taking the smallest steps they could take, Hawkeye and Father Mulcahy had their backs against the wall.

She wondered where he'd got the gun. 

"My son, think about what you're doing," Mulcahy was entreating, and Hawkeye was saying nothing but with his hands by his sides, fingers curled, studiedly peaceful, and Margaret was thinking confusedly about how much she loved all of them for what they were and despised them a little for what they were and then, a very few moments later, when she was sitting on the edge of one of the beds holding the gun and BJ was leading Private Rolf away to bed and calling one of the other nurses for a sedative, she said: "Someone had to do something."

"Thank you," Hawkeye said, his hands still by his sides and shaking, and she thought: _for doing what you can't do_.

*

3\. "And then," BJ said, "and then one of the Marines said – look, I know you didn't want a blow-by-blow account" – a pause, as Potter, Hawkeye and Margaret all winced – "but this part is important. The Marine came up to me and said… well." He trailed off uncomfortably. "He said, uh, something about my wife. And then Major Houlihan – she hit him, uh, pretty hard. She was provoked!" he added, hastily.

Potter sighed. "Before I came to this infernal place I might have said I never expected three of my officers brought up before me for brawling. But as things never do turn out how we expect and the good Lord works in mysterious ways, I'm going to say instead that, of my three officers brought up before me for brawling, I never expected you to be one of them. Major Houlihan, do you have anything to say for yourself?"

Margaret saluted. "Next time I'll hit him harder."

There was dead, perfect silence.

"But, Colonel Potter, sir," she added, softening, "I'll pay for the table."

*

4\. The stupid thing was that it wasn't that she'd had a letter from her mother, talking about her neighbour's grandchildren; it wasn't because of the new nurse who had just transferred from the 8063rd, eagerly showing the girls her ring, twisting it around and around on her finger; it wasn't BJ passing around a new snapshot of his daughter, smiling through a faceful of strawberry jam, although all of those were things that had happened. It was just her walking through the compound, late one night after finishing her shift in post-op, through the evening air that felt, for the first time, of frost; it was just a quiet moment of realisation that if she chose, she would never see him again; that he was under curved sunny skies in Honolulu right now, and he wasn't thinking of her.

She stopped by the Swamp, staying outside the door. She said, "It's getting cold, you'll have to roll down the flaps" and uncharacteristically Hawkeye didn't jerk upwards with a start so she seemed to see him as a stranger for a moment, still indistinct through the blur of canvas. 

"Margaret," he said, into his pillow, and she said, before she could lose her nerve: 

"Hawkeye, I need you."

"In post-op?" he asked, already reaching for his boots, and she held up a hand to steady him.

"To drink with," she said, "and maybe, to talk…" – and the last word was so quiet, perhaps he hadn't heard it, but he got up, opened the door to let her in, started looking for a couple of glasses. 

"Tell me," he said, very quietly; he wasn't looking directly at her.

"My husband," she said, incoherently, "who isn't, any more…" – and then she trailed off.

Something about him sharpened for a moment; she saw something knowing in his eyes when he turned back towards her, and then he blurred back into indolence and there was a drink in her outstretched hand. The gin tasted clean and cathartic; the oncoming chill felt like a harbinger of change. She wondered how many friends Donald Penobscott had, under that sunny Hawaiian sky.

*

5\. Those were all things that happened before; this is what comes after.

First, she does nothing. She walks around barefoot, she watches people walking along the street below her window. She lies on top of the covers in her tiny apartment, just breathing in the clean air, waiting for it to replace the dust in her lungs. And then she spends two weeks just visiting – her parents, old friends from nursing school, girls she trained with who are married now, or have toddlers calling out for Auntie Margaret, or who wear crisp linen, take crisp charge of wards and community practices and emergency rooms. And then there are another two weeks while she learns how to do one kind of job and unlearns how to do another, gets used to bright lights and small-time hurts, slipped nail guns and children coming off swings. 

And then one day she thinks about calling in sick, and doesn't; and then there's another day, not very much later, that she takes as leave for no reason at all. She fills up her car with gas at a tiny filling station towards the edge of the city; she asks the guy there how far she has to drive to reach the ocean. He looks at her a little strangely, but he tells her and then she gets back in the car and starts driving, crossing all the miles to open water with the windows rolled down and the wind upsetting the perfection of her hair. She walks slowly along the shoreline, picking her way through bladderwrack and seashells, until she's gone far enough to be tired. She remembers suddenly that Hawkeye told her, once, about the house he was born in, on a hill smashed by Atlantic breakers, windows open to their spray. She hasn't written to him yet, but she will; there are no unexploded landmines in Maine, no shells dropping from the unclouded sky. There's time.

She turns and looks out at the sea and thinks, simply, of survival. She made it here, step by step over uncertain ground: unmarried, unfettered, with the salt air alive with promise, with the best yet to come.


End file.
